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I also defend that regulation of economical institutions (that's the normal businesses) should exist to guarantee no government interferes with their function ever again. Because it was that left-wing approach that strangled our economic models and allowed for the financial system to gain a foothold in the economy.

That seems completely contradictory. Regulation of normal businesses that means anything implies interference by part of the government. Not necessarily "we're taking over your business" like it was with the bailouts but "we're taking over your business because we want these rules followed and will audit your performance to determine if you can stay operative."

On top of that I'm not sure I agree with the idea that left policies made the financial sector a bigger deal than it is. That at least shouldn't be true for the United States. It was the sub-prime mortgage crisis that started everything here.

Originally Posted by wikipedia

In 2000, because of a re-assessment of the housing market by HUD, anti-predatory lending rules were put into place that disallowed risky, high-cost loans from being credited toward affordable housing goals. In 2004, these rules were dropped and high-risk loans were again counted toward affordable housing goals.[23]

The intent was that Fannie Mae's enforcement of the underwriting standards they maintained for standard conforming mortgages would also provide safe and stable means of lending to buyers who did not have prime credit.

I could easily attribute this to the right, since they were in charge at that time and would deregulate like that. Maybe that's my mistake.

I do agree that people on the right (and left) need to modernize their priorities. I also agree that the terms "left" and "right" easily do more harm than good when discussing specific issues. But you are speaking in very general terms and saying, "let us stop it with the generalizations!". It's oxymoronic.

As could be this quote. And for the exact same reasons.

Originally Posted by MK27

I do not think anyone is going to get out of the right-left spectrum anytime soon, even if they want to incorporate such a fantasy into their rhetoric.

I don't even think I see an inkling of that "fantasy" being formed on the minds of politicians, the media, or the population in general. Except for a few specialized circles (economists, sociologists, philosophers, scholars in general...).

Originally Posted by MK27

We communicate with language. You can eschew "hollow adjectives", but I am curious: what will you replace them with? I often shudder at the level of political discussion and the way hollow language and seriously flawed reasoning is spouted as wisdom. I think it is possible to get people to think differently by giving them new words to use, but I am not sure if throwing the baby out with the bathwater is the way to do that.

I'm positive it would be. If ideas were discussed instead of ideas gagged by century old ideological principles. If the right saw the virtues of some of the left and the left the virtues of some of the right, you'd almost certainly have a solution to our problems. Because over the years, left and right did everything they possibly could to be everything except the other. It's been our downfall this total separation of ideological thinking as if it was really possible to have solutions to all problems without being a bit of both.

What our politics need is moderated parties capable of construing politics outside an ideological framework and being largely immune to its effects.

Originally Posted by MK27

If you can introduce new positive terms, great. But simply trying to negate old ones because they are old is not the same thing at all. You are now engaged in the religiosity I referred to earlier. Maybe you should be "born again".

I'm not interested in your argument flipping. The fact you took your time to answer to the point -- and to every point -- my previous argument, illustrates very well you understood every single bit of what was being said. You just choose to make use of your writing qualities and dialectic tricks to attempt to corner them.

I can't quite return in kind your speech. It's beyond my own abilities, or interest, to start a debate with you in the best (and worst) tradition of ancient Greece. I just find it a waste of time.

What I register however is your opposition to the idea that political thinking can be defined outside an ideological framework. And that is enough for me to understand your position.

... or maybe you agree generally to that idea but chose instead to comment on my futile attempts at making that argument, just to please yourself. Won't know for sure. But it doesn't matter.

That seems completely contradictory. Regulation of normal businesses that means anything implies interference by part of the government.

Yeah. I didn't express that well. What I mean is "I also defend legislation of economical institutions (that's the normal businesses) should exist to guarantee no government interferes with their function ever again."

Of course, this does not mean NO regulation, as MK27 was so quick to conclude, in an excellent display of what is the modern American political speech. i.e. intolerant of seeing any middle ground when facing the opposition arguments.

I don't even think I see an inkling of that "fantasy" being formed on the minds of politicians, the media, or the population in general. Except for a few specialized circles (economists, sociologists, philosophers, scholars in general...).

Hmmm. Well, I am about as intellectual as they come, lol. Economics, sociology, and even philosophy might be "specialized circles", but I don't think that means any of the above advance a common agenda even within their circle. Except rhetorically (in the pejorative sense of "rhetoric").

However, I am intrigued: perhaps you could point me to an example of such a scholar?

I think it is possible to get people to think differently by giving them new words to use, but I am not sure if throwing the baby out with the bathwater is the way to do that.

I'm positive it would be. If ideas were discussed instead of ideas gagged by century old ideological principles.

Part of my point was, your idea is NOTHING NEW, and qv. the observations of Orwell and Nietzsche that I pointed to. The 20th century, thanks in part to the modern media, was probably unprecedented WRT the frequency at which one group would usurp another and claim they were "breaking new ground by burying the old". Certainly, that was the explicit goal of the cultural revolution in China, and (less explicitly) the historical re-visionism of the Nazis.

AFAICT you are just advocating what I would call "anti-intellectualism". I guess I do take that personally so my perspective is slightly emotional, but I also believe very strongly (and rationally) that it is a wolf in sheep's clothing.

If the right saw the virtues of some of the left and the left the virtues of some of the right, you'd almost certainly have a solution to our problems.

Absolutely. However, that does not mean abandoning our ideas about right and left. I do need to get my shoes on the correct foot.

You talk about this, and yet you are as polemical as ever. So now, rather than dismiss my arguments as "leftist", you can dismiss them as "still tied to that old idea, politics".

I've observed this repeatedly in GD and it is an honest and serious critique, Mario: you are too prone to abstraction/generalization and avoid discussion of significant, concrete examples.

Because over the years, left and right did everything they possibly could to be everything except the other.

Here's your chance: please give me a definite example of what you are talking about.

What our politics need is moderated parties capable of construing politics outside an ideological framework and being largely immune to its effects.

This is interesting, because it demonstrates that there are some "old ideas" you are rejecting, but others you insist on clinging to. Considering you are against polemics (but still, lol, very polemical about that), it seems ironic that the idea you cling to here is parties.

I would love to see a representative democracy without parties. I am not sure if there are any. Of course, that would mean your parliament/congress/whatever would not have a singular permanent leader, but is that such a big step?

The fact you took your time to answer to the point -- and to every point -- my previous argument, illustrates very well you understood every single bit of what was being said. You just choose to make use of your writing qualities and dialectic tricks to attempt to corner them.

Yes, but not just to be clever. I would love to see you refine your thinking here. After all, Mario, you and I do have something to offer one another, dialectically,* heh-heh. But if "coming out of your corner" simply means finding the next one, expect to end up going full circle in the end.

I can't quite return in kind your speech. It's beyond my own abilities, or interest, to start a debate with you in the best (and worst) tradition of ancient Greece. I just find it a waste of time.

Oh pooh. Am I never going to live ancient Greece down now? You will, at least (and IMO, at best) help hedge the populist vote here: "Well I ain't all book learned or nothin', but I still know my mind..."

Sure. Don't we all?

What I register however is your opposition to the idea that political thinking can be defined outside an ideological framework.

I'm not opposed to it in the sense that an old school industrialist might be opposed to the idea of global warming -- I don't have a vested interest in the outcome. However, I have a hard time getting my head around the "idea" that what you are discussing is not also "ideological".

Which is not to say it is bad, but it is far from sensical at this point, IMO. It order for me to take it seriously, I have to perceive it as something other than just another polemic.

Responding with, "Well you just perceive everything as polemic" is another polemical generalization. Around and around. You want to keep spinning the wagon wheel whilst shouting, "Can't we get this thing to stop?"

Originally Posted by MK27

Are we to chuck that one out too, because rationalism is "so last last century, I'm tired of it"?

Escaping partisan politics does not mean you say the same old thing, then when I say, "Well that is the same old wealthy conservative capitalist speak", and it is still subject to the same old rational criticisms, you say, "No, those criticisms do not make sense because we want to avoid partisan politics".

The dialectical method is dialogue between two or more people holding different points of view about a subject, who wish to establish the truth of the matter by dialogue, with reasoned arguments.[1] Dialectics is different from debate, wherein the debaters are committed to their points of view, and mean to win the debate, either by persuading the opponent, proving their argument correct, or proving the opponent's argument incorrect — thus, either a judge or a jury must decide who wins the debate. Dialectics is also different from rhetoric, wherein the speaker uses logos, pathos, or ethos to persuade listeners to take their side of the argument.

I've observed this repeatedly in GD and it is an honest and serious critique, Mario: you are too prone to abstraction/generalization and avoid discussion of significant, concrete examples.

After I re-read this I thought, to be fair, I should provide a concrete example:

Originally Posted by Mario F.

Of course, this does not mean NO regulation, as MK27 was so quick to conclude, in an excellent display of what is the modern American political speech. i.e. intolerant of seeing any middle ground when facing the opposition arguments.

Well, you spoke in terms of generalities: that in general, you thought leftist regulation had a harmful effect on the economy.

I won't re-iterate what I've already said, re: the economy is not the holy grail to which everything else must be sacrificed. It is not as if when the day of judgment is here, only economics will save us.

Chicken Little, surely, was a stock broker.

Anyway, if you did not mean NO regulation, what regulation did you mean? SPECIFICALLY. You did not say anything about the environmental restrictions. How about the minumum wage? Is that excessive government control, and bad for the economy?

How about the minumum wage? Is that excessive government control, and bad for the economy?

the minimum wage can limit job creation, because if the applicant or the job isn't worth the minimum wage, nobody will get hired.

for example:

a company wants to hire someone to stuff envelopes.
the average person can stuff (for example) 2000 envelopes in an 8 hour work day.
1% of envelopes result in a response.
1% of responses result in a sale.
a sale averages $100.00.

the $100.00 generated by that 1 in 10000 is not enough to cover the $290.00 per week cost of labor at the $7.25/hour minimum wage, therefore, the position will remain unfilled.
a person would have to stuff 5800 envelopes per day just for the company to break even, to say nothing of actually making any money on the deal.

there are several ways to recover this shortfall:
re-tune the advertising at great expense so that at least 3% of envelopes result in a response
re-tune the advertising at great expense so that at least 3% of responses generate a sale
re-tune the advertising at great expense so that each sale generates at least $300.00 of revenue
reduce the wage of the individual stuffing envelopes to make it a profitable proposition.

it's simple math, and I'm sure you'll agree that this is not an unrealistic scenario.

the minimum wage can limit job creation, because if the applicant or the job isn't worth the minimum wage, nobody will get hired.

for example:

a company wants to hire someone to stuff envelopes.
the average person can stuff (for example) 2000 envelopes in an 8 hour work day.
1% of envelopes result in a response.
1% of responses result in a sale.
a sale averages $100.00.

the $100.00 generated by that 1 in 10000 is not enough to cover the $290.00 per week cost of labor at the $7.25/hour minimum wage, therefore, the position will remain unfilled.
a person would have to stuff 5800 envelopes per day just for the company to break even, to say nothing of actually making any money on the deal.

there are several ways to recover this shortfall:
re-tune the advertising at great expense so that at least 3% of envelopes result in a response
re-tune the advertising at great expense so that at least 3% of responses generate a sale
re-tune the advertising at great expense so that each sale generates at least $300.00 of revenue
reduce the wage of the individual stuffing envelopes to make it a profitable proposition.

it's simple math, and I'm sure you'll agree that this is not an unrealistic scenario.

the minimum wage can limit job creation, because if the applicant or the job isn't worth the minimum wage, nobody will get hired.

for example:

a company wants to hire someone to stuff envelopes.

[...]

it's simple math, and I'm sure you'll agree that this is not an unrealistic scenario.

I guess, that is a business! And of course, if you are running a business, it is only fair that your business make money!! If not, clearly there is something wrong with the government, or the global economic situation.

Capitalist economies depend on a small but substantial unemployment rate (5-10%). Without this, bottom-feeder employers (a very large part of the global economy) would have no labour pool to draw upon. Bottom-feeder capitalists are very interested in two things:

1) Ensuring that the un-employed have no salvation; ie, that they must must find someone who will give them some money -- any money -- for anything. That gives bottom-feeder capitalists the most freedom (and all the trash population the least, but que sera).

2) That they can hire people at close to no cost to do things of close to no value; someone upstream will still pay slightly more than that, because it doesn't mean or matter that much to them anyway. Especially if they know the poor trash who did the tish for them have no choice anyway. After all, you aren't slightly upstream for nothing -- you're special.

Okay, I just did something I chastised Mario for, lol. But que sera. Looks right to me.

I would support removing or at least reducing the minimum wage because more jobs would become available. jobs that simply would not generate enough revenue to employ someone at the current minimum wage. another effect of the minimum wage is that it becomes an effective maximum in many ways. if a business knows that it can legally get by with never giving someone a raise, they may (and many do) do exactly that. fast food, retail, and grocery stores are pretty notorious for this. on the other side of that coin, though, is the fact that most of those can be considered "entry level" jobs, which are arguably overpaid, even at the minimum wage.

My position is that the government should take less from us, and give less to us. generally allow people to do as they please so long as they do not measurably (physically or financially) harm anyone else, and this includes business. the government should exist to protect and facilitate, not to provide.

I'd be in favor of legalizing most drugs, so long as there was a way to instantaneously determine if someone is under the influence - not just whether they were in the last week.
I think the government needs to get out of the marriage business. remove any legal status that marriage has, and just let people who love each other do exactly that, without interference.

what they fail to realize is that the more government oversight and regulation you have, the worse the problems get. excessive regulation is what caused the mortgage industry collapse in the US. by requiring banks to approve home mortgages for people who could not afford to pay them back, the US government (thanks to carter and clinton) caused its own problems.

Actually, that's the opposite of what happened. The more heavily-regulated banks weren't the source of most of the bad mortgages. The real problems were mortgage companies (which aren't bound by any of those federal regulations).

And the reason they made loans to people who couldn't pay them back: they didn't really care because overall those loans were really, really, really profitable.

In the past, mortgage companies usually earned money even on those people who defaulted on loans. Since housing values "always rise" (or so most believed at the time), the borrower who is out of money can just sell the house to repay the loan. Since the house has appreciated in value, their remaining equity can go to the mortgage holder to repay the missed payments. And since they bleed the riskier people on high interest rates, they actually raked in a ton of cash on subprime loans.

Banks and mortgage companies didn't really care if you would always be able to pay, because if you couldn't, they could just force you to sell the home and get their money that way. That works so long as housing prices keep going up - as long as the house is worth more than the loan, the bank doesn't really care if you can repay it or not - they have the house as collateral.

The real problem came when housing prices fell - now the houses were worth less than the remaining debt. Over 10% of the nation lived in negative equity. Now, there's no way out - the person can't sell the house for a price high enough to pay off the loan, and now the mortgage holder must take a loss if the borrower can't make their monthly payments. The same mortgage types that had been tremendously profitable now became tremendously unprofitable.

This was only one of many factors, though. There were many other key factors at play:

1. The companies issuing the loans weren't the ones taking the risk at all. They would bundle the loans and sell them. These were bought heavily because they received AAA ratings, they paid good interest rates, and they let banks invest in mortgages beyond the amount they normally could, because of how a mortgage-backed security is different on the balance sheets than simply a mortgage (how it counts towards the bank's equity and leverage ratios is different).

2. The entire industry was using the same theoretical models of risk that systematically underestimated the risk under certain conditions. So all parties were making decisions under inaccurate information about the actual risk.

3. Banks tried to hedge their bets by 'insuring' these mortgage-backed securities (via credit default swaps), but the companies they were insured by (e.g. AIG) lacked sufficient assets to actually make their 'insurance' payments when so many claims happened at once.

In some aspects... but that may not be entirely a bad thing if it results in some redistribution of wealth to those who need it most.

so you think there's nothing wrong with wholesale theft?

Which is all that that "redistribution" really is. Take things from productive people, people who actually work for a living, and give them to slackers who refuse to put in any effort to generate their own income, the professional unemployed and unemployable who deliberately make it so that they will never get accepted for a job.

All it does is destroy resources, drive jobs away from the country as people who can fund investment, can hire people to do jobs, take their money overseas to where it won't get stolen.
Heck, if I could do so I'd take my meager savings elsewhere as well, as well as myself, to be away from such people.

but the further left you go, the more they seem to want the government to control everything, to the point of taking all of everyone's money, so that everyone is equally impoverished, and then doling out what they think people "need" to live on. the trouble with this is that the government then has the power to deny service to individuals or groups who they deem unworthy, leaving them (potentially, quite literally) out in the cold.

tbh, most of them are too shortsighted and stupid to think that far.
They just see others having more than they do, and decide they want it too (or more often just that they want it, never mind whether the other guy will still have it afterwards), and they want the government to give it to them.
As the other guy has it, and doesn't freely give it up, he must be greedy and be punished for it.
Thus they call for ever higher taxes on "the rich", defining "rich" as anyone who has more than they do.
They call for punishment of "evil corporate greed" while buying iPhones and Gstar jeans, eating Kellog's cornflakes and drinking Coca Cola while driving their Chevrolets, all products of the very same corporations they despise so much, never realising the anti-corporate laws and regulations they look for would destroy those corporations and make those products disappear.

They're childish, greedy, people, perfect material for subversion by communists and anarchists, the proverbial "useful idiots" from the KGB handbooks on such matters.
And that's exactly what we see in the entire "occupy" movement. They don't even know what they're protesting, when asked what their agenda is they say they have to go ask someone else.
They mindlessly repeat whatever their assigned leaders shouts, no thinking required.

Which is all that that "redistribution" really is. Take things from productive people, people who actually work for a living, and give them to slackers who refuse to put in any effort to generate their own income, the professional unemployed and unemployable who deliberately make it so that they will never get accepted for a job.

Wow, way to sum up the entire left-wing of basically every country on earth in a complete black-and-white image. There must be a lot of "professionally unemployed" people where you live if you honestly believe that redistribution of wealth is stealing, personally i have never met even a single unemployed person who did not either wish they had a job, or wish they were capable of having a job. What reality do you live in?

People are not on government support because they choose to be, or well, maybe one in a thousand is, but the other 999 are on government support because they have to be. Do you also find that a person born with some kind of birth defect or disability does not deserve support from the society they were born into? What about heroine addicts or prostitutes? What about the unemployed trailer-park resident? Do you honestly believe people CHOOSE these lifestyles at some point in their life? If so, you are truely as naive as you let on. Have you ever heard the term 'born with a silver spoon up the arse'? The only way liberalism could ever be a fair system is in a society where everyone are born as equals, sadly, such a society does not exist. In a society with as much inequality as America, it never ceases to amaze me how the average American buys into this bs about everyone being born with equal opportunities.

Can you tell me, with a straight face, that a black infant born in Compton by a single mother, has the same shot at an average middle-class existence, as a caucasian infant born in Bel-Air? Really?? If not, the entire ideology on which you swear, completely crumbles, there is no fairness in liberalism, there is none whatsoever, it's all just luck.

They call for punishment of "evil corporate greed" while buying iPhones and Gstar jeans, eating Kellog's cornflakes and drinking Coca Cola while driving their Chevrolets, all products of the very same corporations they despise so much, never realising the anti-corporate laws and regulations they look for would destroy those corporations and make those products disappear.

The hipocrisy in this is just astounding. Let me fix this for you:

They call for punishment of "evil socialist deeds" while driving on the public roads, mailing letters, drinking water from the tap and using electricity from the mains, all products of the very same socialism they despise so much, never realising the anti-socialist laws and regulations they look for would destroy those publicly-financed commodities

They just see others having more than they do, and decide they want it too

They just see people living on the streets, going through trashcans looking for food, and decide they don't want to share.

See? Every ideology can be diminished to some useless idiotic floskel, i suggest you bring some real arguments to the table.

The way i see it, society is what gives your money value, it is society that educated you when you were young, it is society who gave you the opportunity to make it big, society is the backbone of our civilization, without it we would still be living in caves fighting each other with clubs, yet the individuals who gained THE MOST from being part of the society, are also the ones who refuse to take part in it. I'd have a pretty bad taste in my mouth if that was me.

the $100.00 generated by that 1 in 10000 is not enough to cover the $290.00 per week cost of labor at the $7.25/hour minimum wage, therefore, the position will remain unfilled.
a person would have to stuff 5800 envelopes per day just for the company to break even, to say nothing of actually making any money on the deal.

It is actually far worse than that. The cost of employing that person is far higher than the wage he is taking home.
The company has to pay social security premiums, liability insurance, has to maintain his workstation and support staff for the function, etc. etc.
That $7.25 must often be doubled (or worse) to get the real cost of employing that person.